Tuesday, 31 December 2013

like the lave of wormswe have a constant need to burrowroad up for repairyet we ask how do the holes appear in the cheesecoal dust gold diamondoil we dig sprinkle salton fish n chipsafter church on sunday the wineand the spirit discovery of methane and the funwe make with a light as we take it in turnto burn our fartsand all this while we are sinking ourselves deeperinto this fracking great nightmare Philip Johnsonhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25420552

Monday, 30 December 2013

Blood is gushing from a woundin the desert’s starry side.You are there on hands and kneestrying to staunch the flowwith seashells and strange-shaped bottlesa narwhal tusk and emerald inkand old ships’ mermaids.Suspended now like ghosts in mid-flightaround a house you dry-dockedon the black rocky outcropthey crossed this springwith tools of a tradeto dig up the past to bury it again.

Selfsame day everything in her sanklow like a warship or mineshaftor tea drank with a general in Pimlico.Becoming good being gonethe lady is not for returning as you turnyour face from sea to sunribs rife with light and needlesfrom a stand of pine.Engraving the white dry salty airwhile a figurehead called Maria Celesteweeps winds to flameyour revenant bones rising.With the cello’s flaming mane.

Clare McCotter's poetry has appeared in Abridged, Boyne Berries, Crannóg, Cyphers, Decanto (forthcoming), Iota (forthcoming), Irish Feminist Review, Poetry24, Revival, Reflexion, The Cannon’s Mouth, The Moth Magazine, The Poetry Bus, The SHOp and The StingingFly. Black Horse Running, her first collection of haiku, tanka and haibun, was published in 2012. Home is Kilrea, County Derry.

Sunday, 29 December 2013

So, here we are remembering Christmas and approaching the New Year. In Cornwall, at least, the weather has been windy, wet and wild and this has led to some problems getting on line. Thanks are due, therefore, to our regulars, both readers and contributors, for bearing with us over the festive period.

We began the week with Clare McCotter's 'The Light in Argenteuil', which makes a telling comment on two quite different stories both of which relate to a decision over whether or not to grant bail. One anonymous commentator was bold enough to challenge Clare's use of the lovely word 'cypseline' which turns out to mean 'of or relating to swifts'. Now I freely admit to not knowing this word either - after all, even editors can't know everything - but I look forward, with much relish, to using it on at least one occasion in 2014.

On Tuesday, Christmas Eve' we published my own 'A Blessing for the Winter Solstice' together with a photograph of the bears' Christmas party which showed just some of my six or seven hundred bears. This was followed on Thursday by Bryn Hyfrd's 'Slaves at Christmas' which, unfortunately caused us a few problems in as much as we appear to have confused two versions of the poem and, due to Hotmail being down for some time, were unable to do anything about it. Hamish and I are mortified that this happened and we hope that Bry will forgive us. Now that there are just the two of us things can sometimes get a bit fraught and, recently, both the weather and the demands of the season have gone against us.

On Friday we published David Mellor's 'A Gift X' and I hope that readers took the time to click on the link for the video. I tried to embed it but it was one of those occasions when my PC just wasn't having it. Anyway, thank you David for sending us the clip. I for one could listen to that accent all day.

Finally, on Saturday, it was left to Eric Olsen to remind us of the recent passing of the very elegant and talented 'Joan Fontaine' who played opposite Cary Grant in the Alfred Hitchcock classic, 'Suspicion'. Thank you,Eric, for allowing us to pay tribute to one who might easily have been overlooked.

Well, we are almost done with 2013, though there may be a poem or two still to come. We will be trying to operate as usual over the New Year but, with another storm forecast for Cornwall, there may be disruptions. Here's wishing you all a happy, peaceful and productive 2014. Please keep those submissions coming in but, also, please read the Submission Guidelines. It does make things a great deal easier for Hamish and I if our contributors adhere to them exactly.

Tuesday, 24 December 2013

Let us make ready to make Saturnaliaby upturning this grim world on its head;let us be jesters who go tumbling, all,to find a new expansiveness of heart.

Today let us be kind to each other,making fools of ourselves for love's sake.Let us rejoice to exchange our crowns for a wisdom worn to tatters and rags.

And let us be merry, and offer small gifts,tokens of good will and affection:here is a candle, here a blessing, and a prayer.Say that, even in this darkness, we will shine.Abigail WyattHamish and I would like to express our grateful thanks to all our contributors. I am afraid that Hotmail is down at the moment so we cannot access our submissions so we- and the bears - are sending this seasonal greeting. We will resume normal service as soon as possible.

Monday, 23 December 2013

Has gone from Room 10 Merrion Square.The black sun left by a puncturing fistenshadows lozenges of lapisand light-blue and aqua -rapid broken brushworkone time shimmeringwater and autumn’s russet ghosts.Drifting toward a village flecked with gold.

Transmuted now to a square of shadeon red embossed wallpaper.His monument to the momentspirited away by a flock of cypseline handsstraining under swan neck lampsto suture not restore.Discharged light rendering the canvasalways dimmer than before.That dawn that he caughtthe transient luminous riverside.

His wild moth eyes full of violettracking protean preythrough field and orchardand the garden where he knelt in old ageto plant among the irisrhizomes of light.Spreading shoots near and farone stolen this year from a boat’s white sail.

The perpetrator remanded in custodysame court same judge same daya Belfast rapist is granted the bail he jumpedto flee the country for the Continent.His victim wondering what price placedon the safety of womenon the dark efflorescence that suppurates between her legs and will not still.

Clare McCotter's poetry has appeared in Abridged, Boyne Berries, Crannóg, Cyphers, Decanto (forthcoming), Iota (forthcoming), Irish Feminist Review, Poetry24, Revival, Reflexion, The Cannon’s Mouth, The Moth Magazine, The Poetry Bus, The SHOp and The StingingFly. Black Horse Running, her first collection of haiku, tanka and haibun, was published in 2012. Home is Kilrea, County Derry.

Sunday, 22 December 2013

Douglas Polk's "Ukraine" started the week at Poetry24 with a look at how the Ukrainians are continuing their resistance against their government. I like how the opening of the poem reminds us of the history of the country:
Lenin falls again,
still unfeeling,
a heart of stoneAmy Barry's "The Revisit" on Tuesday, took us back to the return trip to Robben Island that Nelson Mandela took and surmised at how he would have felt. Amy makes a very poignant assessment in:

Amy Barry writes poems and short stories. She has been a regular contributor to Poetry 24. Her poems have been published in anthologies, journals, and e-zines, in Ireland and abroad such as Mad Swirl, EDP, The New Ulster, First Cut, Misty Mountain Review, The Plum tree kindle. Trips to India, Nepal, China, Bali, Paris, Berlin, have all inspired her work.

Monday, 16 December 2013

Lenin falls again,still unfeeling,a heart of stone,or steel,as Stalin would say,people repulsed,freedom much more than a word on a page,felt and understood in the soul,not to be captured in theory,or corralled in ideology,a fire raging within,contained,but only for a moment.

Sunday, 15 December 2013

We began the week with Darrell Petska's 'The Needle's Eye', a comment on the remarks made by talk show host Rush Limbaugh to the effect that the Pope's 'Evangelii Gaudem' was little short of 'pure Marxism'. Then, on Tuesday, we had Bryn Hyfrd's poem 'The Things' which addresses the very pertinent question of the media's representation of female identity. I love the final stanza so I am going to quote it in full:

Between tiara, knicker-line and page 3 heads

Women as commodities make a good spread,

Stuck between the whore and Madonna we stand

Whilst the profiteers rub their grubby hands.

On Wednesday, we published 'AIDS in Light and Shade' by Pijush Kanti Deb, a poem written in response to World AIDS Day and to the suggestion by a ONE report that we might have reached beginning of the end of AIDS in Africa. The poem reminds us, however, that 'This is not a foregone conclusion' because and that 'an ocean of blood and sweat / is yet to be spent'.

On Thursday, we had 'Self portrait' by Martha Landman, a poem which, as Deborah Tanzer commented, was 'Powerful, moving and beautifully worded. It you have not read this piece already, then please clink on the link immediately.

Finally, on Friday, it was the turn of regular contributor, David Mellor, to comment of the 'selfie' for which David Cameron posed alongside the Danish Prime Minister and Barak Obama. 'Photo.............Shoot' is an uncompromising poem, as we have come to expect from Mr Mellor. It is true that another contributor, Luigi Pagano, has suggested that David Cameron cannot be blamed for events that occurred before he came to office; personally, however, I am in agreement with David M. It seems to me that Mr Cameron makes no secret of his admiration for Margaret Thatcher and the fact is that, in his youth, at least, he was no great friend to the equally youthful Mandela.

And, on that note, I leave you for another two weeks. Please do keep the submissions coming in but please also be aware that, as the holiday season approaches, Hamish and I will be under some pressure. In particular, if you could make sure that you add your bio to your submission even if it is the same as last time. The thing is, you see, it saves us a lot of time when we are getting your work ready for publication.

Thursday, 12 December 2013

I faced the screen and painted a dreamIn rhythm with a mourning crowdThree of us, like wedding guests,Hell-bent on mind-moving momentsDemanded that our walk to viral freedomBe justified, be glorified

My paint dripped in rainbow coloursAnd for a minute there I thought itWas Madiba’s hand I shook, but whenI heard the crowd: Ubuntu! Obama!I set the imprisoned fingers free,Surprised at my self in the Cuban eyes.

Wednesday, 11 December 2013

The benevolent heartof a global health policy director-embellished with a sacred soul too,seems to be quite blissfulin saying to telephone,‘’it is time to retire the phrase-Aids in Africa’’,as a troop of warriors of sixteen countriesin sub-Saharan Africa,declared a war against the curse- AIDS,tarnished its fatal powerand compelled it to sneak behindkeeping lower the numbers of new HIV infectionsthan the new patients of AIDS in the same year.

Quite enthusiastic is the report,the medical world gets a cool bath in the heavenly shower of hopeand describes it with a luminous smile as,‘’Beginning of the end of AIDS’’.Thankful are the countries likeGhana, Malawi and Zambiato the active efforts of the governments,grateful to the international donors andhopeful to the civil society leaders-fighting together against the dreadful foe-AIDS.

Alas! Shade always follows lightas some unfortunate countries likeCameroon, Nigeria and Togo-still lag far behindin fighting against the curseas circumscribed they are by a black girdleof lack of political will, adequate fund ,hygienic delivery system andsympathy for the marginalised population-cursed mercilessly by the horrible AIDS.Let’s feel the caution that reverberates In the airas pronounced by the policy director,‘’Beginning of the end of AIDS’’ is‘’Not a foregone conclusion’’,an ocean of blood and sweatis yet to be spent to purchase a new world---free of dirty curse of Devil- AIDS.

Sunday, 8 December 2013

Monday, confusingly enough, stated with David Mellor's poem "It's Black Friday" which is a cry against the sort of aggressive consumerism that engulfs people from time to time. David gives a message in the poem that is eloquently summed up by this extract.

And that one day

You are “passionate”

About something

Other than

you.

Tuesday's poem was "end of the bird shooting season" by Philip Johnson which centred on the announcement that Amazon made that it will soon have drones delivering books. I may be wrong but I think Philip welcomes this addition to target richness. Amazon appears to be trying to prove the saying of sales flying out the door.

Laura Taylor provided Wednesday's poem "McGarrigle's Glasgow" which is a wonderful memorial of a poet killed in the helicopter crash in Glasgow. It has some great imagery in it for example

Friday's poem "A Lost Generation" by Mari Maxwell would be one of the more confronting poems I have read on Poetry24 but with absolutely every right to be like that. The incident it describes is extremely shocking. Mari manages to retell horrifc events without pulling punches and yet we don't feel so revolted that we blot it out. It's very well written. The comments for the poem will repay your reading of them too.

Have a good week, may the news muse visit and convince you to send in the results.

Friday, 6 December 2013

They burned the horse. Petrol across her fine ebony flanks. Swirls and curlicues of peacock, blue and green, shimmering, undulating in the setting sun. Her proud eyes, magnificent beneath whisper of soft lash. Unused to the whoops, the flaying belts, the gurriers kicking at her belly. Her heartbeat pushing the mackerel mane in and out. Out and in. Nickering with the cloying oils. She whinnied, shook herself, showering the boys with petrol drops. Her mane and tail like candle wick as she shrieked and bucked burnt hair on November wind. They no longer whooped. She watched them through the smoke, smouldering beside her. Skin sizzling and popping - unable to flick the equine fireballs from cloth and hair. And as she died, horsemeat to the gang, she found she had no pity. No sorry in her thud-thud, thud, quietened heart. Horse doused in petrol and set alight

David was born in Liverpool in 1964. He left school with nothing, rummaged around various dead end jobs, then back to college and uni. In his 20s he first discovered poetry, starting writing and performing and has done so ever since. I has lived on the Wirral for the past 8 years.

Sunday, 1 December 2013

First up this week was Luigi Pagano with 'The Hair of the Dog', a response to a story from Amsterdam about 'Alcoholics paid in beer to clean the streets' allegedly with the consequence of making those involed reduce their alcohol intake. One of the participants in the scheme, however, is reported as refuting this claim. According to the article, he told a reporter that 'we drink in a more structured way but I don't think we drink less'.

Tuesday brought us, on a more serious note, to P.K Deb's deeply felt and though-provoking 'Civil War and Syria' which reminds us of the anguish of 'Mother Syria' and asks us to 'listen carefully to the whispering prayer / that she leaves in the air'.

On Wednesday the topic was another kind of violence with Philip Johnson's 'before they abolish the rope', a brief and pithy response to the arrival of the 3 D gun. Over the past couple of weeks, we have found submissions have been dwindling so we are grateful to Philip for getting us out of a hole.

Again, due, at least in part, to the lack of other submissions, on Thursday it was me again with 'Greed is Good'. Regular readers may remember 'Holding Out for a Hero' which warned against the slyness of Mr Johnson who is, I believe, a very nasty piece of work. This week, however, appalled as I was to hear of this latest piece of moral repugnance, I was then shocked again to hear the story being covered in the BBC's 'The Papers ' without any of those present feeling the need to suggest, even in the gentlest way, that the promulgation of such a notion might be morally irresponsible, unethical, and socially destructive. Must be just me, then. I see. Ho hum.

Nothing available for Friday at the time of writing so I leave you for a lovely long weekend in a cottage by the River Fal which we have been given - yes, given - by a friend who cannot make it. Long bracing walks, wood burner, mulled wine, that sort of thing. Have a good week next week.